


Dreamer of Roses

by inkonapage



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-13
Updated: 2015-05-13
Packaged: 2018-03-30 09:12:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3931240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkonapage/pseuds/inkonapage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Beauty and the Beast AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreamer of Roses

The fragrance of roses hung heavy in the air. A sea of red and green spreading away from him as far as his eyes could see. Birds twittered around him, but he couldn’t see them. The blue sky stretched unbroken and endless above him. He leaned down to smell a crimson rose. Heady and intoxicating, he felt as if he could drown within it. He stood upright and brushed his fingers over the delicate petals, they came away covered in red. It dripped from his fingers and onto the ground. A thorn pricked his other hand that rested by his side. Another pricked his side, another his neck, another his leg. Blood flowed from the injuries that seemed to be widening with each breath he took.

 

Ronan woke, gasping for breath as if he had held his head underwater for too long. She sat in a throne-like chair that she must have conjured herself. The candle was placed on a table next to her. Allowing him to see only one side of her face in the darkness. Her blonde hair glowed golden around her head before mixing into the darkness in the rest of the room. Ronan pushed himself into a seated position, never taking his eyes away from her. She had made herself into a young woman for his benefit, but he had seen her in other forms; the plain, brown haired mother and the yellow-eyed man.

‘You’re awake at last. I’ve been waiting for hours.’ Her voice tugged at him, but he ignored it.

She stood, slowly walking towards him. Her candle hovered a foot away from her head. She sat down on his bed, staring intently into his eyes. Her hand reached out and brushed his jaw, the stubble there rough under her soft hands. Ronan jerked backwards.

‘I’ve barely noticed when you became a man before my eyes.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘I have a proposition for you, my dear.’

Ronan sat in stony silence.

‘It’s been so many years since you first came into my care,’ she had been the brown haired mother then. ‘Barely more than a boy. Your father had just sadly left this world and your mother … nowhere to be found. I’ve served you for many years. All I ask in repayment is that you make me your wife and mistress of Barns.’

Ronan looked at her intently, his eyes gazing upon everything of her body that the candle revealed to him before returning to look into her eyes. They were a deep green; he had seen them before during daylight hours. The dim of the candle made them seem as if they were black. For a split second he could swear that he saw the yellow eyes that she had once wore. Ronan remembered as he had hidden in his in the shadows and watched as she, wearing the body of a man, had taken a mace straight to his father’s head. He had seen her true nature then and her charms couldn't fool the truth of what he had seen.

 

He smiled as if he was thinking about the future they could have together. Meanwhile his right hand fumbled under his pillow. When he felt the cold sting of metal he gripped it tight. Ronan shot forward aiming for her throat. Suddenly, he felt as if the world had turned to honey and he was attempting to wade through it. He could barely move. A cruel laugh echoed around him. Louder and louder until he wished he could clap his hands over his ears to block it. The world around him turned red, a never-ending stream of blood.

‘Oh, my dear, I can’t let you do that to me.’

Her voice came from all around him and borrowed deep into his mind. He wanted to scream in pain. Ronan struggled against whatever held him here in this hellish world without success.

‘For attempting to kill me, I curse you. Your body will be a mirror to the cruelty that I see within you.’

His body began to prickle underneath his skin as if hundreds of ants had been trapped under there and were attempting to bite their way free. He wanted to yell that she had been the one to kill his father and he was within his rights to kill her as retribution. He finally managed to open his mouth in a soundless scream.

‘Only the true love of another, freely given, can break the curse. But who could love a monster such as you?’

The world of red around him darkened to black and Ronan knew now more.

 

When he woke, she was gone from his room and his house he suspected. Stumbling, Ronan made his way to his gilded mirror that hung on a wall, partially hidden by a dressing screen. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. He saw himself covered in feathers as dark as the thick shadows that often lurked in corners. Some of the feathers angled down from his arms to form crude wings. He forced himself to look at his face. A beak, that was a few shades lighter than his feathers, took up the space where his nose and mouth had once been. He looked closer into his eyes, a solid crimson without an iris or pupil. He touched his beak with his fingertips, uncovered by feathers rather an oddly slick texture, and trailed them down his neck. A sharp pain centered on his index finger. He brought it to his line of vision. His blood. He watched, entranced, as it dropped onto his thick, cream-colored carpet. A closer look in the mirror revealed a garland of thorns wrapped closely around his neck. A short, sharp scream of pain and fury escaped him. Blindly he reached out to the closest thing at hand. A decorative cane. Holding onto it tightly he smashed it into the mirror. Spider web cracks appeared. He hit the mirror again. Chips began to fall away and onto the around. Again. More chips, another web. Again. Again. Again. Again, until the mirror was no more and Ronan lay heaving for breath on the ground. Sucking in air, he screamed. It echoed through the empty castle. Eventually his screams turned into harsh sobs. He cried for his father, his mother, his ugliness. More than anything, he cried because now he truly was all alone.

 


End file.
